REPUBLIC(BOOKVII) 121
e516abcde517a“And if one forced him to look at the light itself, wouldn’t he have pain in his eyes
and escape by turning back toward those things he was able to make out, and consider
them clearer in their very being than the ones pointed out to him?”
“That’s how it would be,” he said.
“And if one were to drag him away from there by force,” I said, “along the rough,
steep road up, and didn’t let go until he’d dragged him out into the light of the sun,
wouldn’t he be feeling pain and anger from being dragged, and when he came into the
light and had his eyes filled with its dazzle, wouldn’t he be unable to see even one of the
things now said to be the true ones?”
“That’s right,” he said, “at least not right away.”
“So I imagine he’d need to get accustomed to it, if he were going to have sight of
the things above. At first, he’d most easily make out the shadows, and after that the
images of human beings and other things in water, and only later the things themselves;
and turning from those things, he’d gaze on the things in the heavens, and at the heav-
ens themselves, more easily by night, looking at the starlight and moonlight, than by
day, at the sun and its light.”
“How could it be otherwise?”
“Then at last, I imagine, he’d gain sight of the sun, not its appearances in water or
in any setting foreign to it, but he’d have the power to see it itself, by itself, in its own
realm, and contemplate it the way it is.”
“Necessarily,” he said.
“And after that, he could now draw the conclusion about it that this is what pro-
vides the seasons and the years, and has the governance of all things in the visible
realm, and is in a certain manner the cause of all those things they’d seen.”
“It’s clear that he’d come to these conclusions after those experiences,” he said.
“And then what? When he recalled his first home and the wisdom there and the
people he was imprisoned with then, don’t you imagine he’d consider himself happy
because of the change and pity the others?”
“Greatly so.”
“And if there had been any honors and commendations and prizes for them then
from one another for the person who had the sharpest sight of the things passing by and
remembered best all the things that usually passed by before and after them and at the
same time, and based on those things had greatest ability to predict what was going to
come, do you think he’d be longing for those rewards and feel jealousy toward the ones
honored by those people and in power among them, or would he feel what Homer
depicts, and wish powerfully
To be a bond-servant to another, tilling the soil
For a man without land of his own,and submit to anything whatever rather than hold those opinions and live that way?”
“The latter, I imagine,” he said; “he’d submit to enduring everything rather than
live in that way.”
“Then give this some thought too,” I said. “If such a person were to go back down
and sit in the same spot, wouldn’t he get his eyes filled with darkness by coming sud-
denly out of the sun?”
“Indeed he would,” he said.
“And if he had to compete with those who’d always been imprisoned, at passing
judgments on those shadows, at a time when his sight was dim before his eyes settled